Podcast: Jack Hitt on Language Detectives

In the July 23rd issue of the magazine, Jack Hitt reports on the use of forensic linguistics in criminal proceedings. Here Hitt talks with Sasha Weiss about what forensic linguistics can tell us about how we communicate.

For listeners new to the field, Hitt explains that forensic linguists study the semantic tics, unusual phrasings, and other verbal clues that reveal “how people unconsciously signal who they are through their language.” These methods have long been used in civil courts to settle disputes over trademarks or patents, but they are increasingly being used to help solve criminal cases as well.

One early case that brought the field to prominence was the hunt for the Unabomber, during which F.B.I. forensic linguist James Fitzgerald used the language in the Unabomber’s manifesto (a singular take on a popular idiom, “you can’t eat your cake and have it too,” for example) to trace the document to Ted Kaczinski. In another famous case, Roger Shuy, a pioneer in the field, helped solve an Illinois kidnapping case based on, among other linguistic clues, the kidnapper’s use of the phrase “devil strip” in a ransom note to mean the patch of grass between the sidewalk and the street. Whether e-mailing, texting, or writing a thirty-five-thousand-word manifesto, Hitt says, we all leave verbal “breadcrumb trails” that forensic linguists can put to Holmesian use.